the answer must be two
by lowi
Summary: "She wants to back off, but she finds herself closing the distance between them." They're overseas, they're alone, and they thought that would be enough. At least Dominique was sure of that.


_A/N: Thanks to __mew-tsubaki__ for beta-reading! See more notes at the end._

* * *

**the answer must be two**

He's just a tiny heap in the bed, messy and crumpled, with elbows pointing hostilely at her and with white soft skin on his ankles from where it irregularly grows small blond hairs.

He looks insignificant to her. She no longer wants to sweep him up in a hug and make sure his breath is warm and that his eyes shine, as she had wanted to do last night.

Then, last night, when he had entered the room silently, eyes dying and hands shivering and fingers tapping against thighs, then she hadn't asked him anything.

Later, when the two of them had crept closer and closer to each other in the bed, and his lips had happened to meet the skin on her neck, and her fingers had begun to wander on his chest and she had swallowed down the tears he'd shed, then she had wanted to ask him things.

But she hadn't, because she had wanted to keep tasting him in her mouth; she had wanted it to stay as it was, even though it was never going to be enough.

And now, now she doesn't want to ask anymore; she wants him to walk out of the room and never return again. She's sitting on the floor, leaning her head against the wall and shivering under the frayed blanket.

There are clothes waiting in the bathroom, but the thought of going up there is terrifying, so she stares at him instead and refuses to move, wanting to sink into the wall and become a part of it. She sits completely still.

He moves around a bit in the bed, strands of his hair plastered against his forehead and long fingers clutching the pillow. He makes a small whimper in the back of his throat but doesn't open his eyes. She wants him to leave, desperately so.

"Go," she whispers.

He rolls over to his side again.

"Go," she says.

She stands up, and his fingers let go of the pillow.

"Leave!" she shouts, and he staggers out of the bed, and neither of them look at each other, and she keeps screaming, "Go, go" at him, and she clutches the blanket around her as tight as she can, and he gathers up his clothes, and she might be pushing him a bit but finally he's out of there.

"Go," she whispers, and she locks the door and sinks down on the floor again.

He's left.

* * *

If he were just more,

she'd maybe be enough,

too.

* * *

"Dominique," he greets her. He has a smear across his jaw, of oil or of soot, and she wishes she had been there to see it smudged, how it got there.

"You and I—" she says, but then she pauses. The air around them is crisp; his breath forms fog, and hoarfrost covers the windows on the car between them.

"I'm sorry—" he begins, but then he pauses. His trousers are torn, and there's soft skin peeking out of their holes—and she wonders if he's cold.

"No, we're not sorry." There's a crash from the garage, and he looks behind himself before rounding the hood of the car so he's closer to her.

She wants to back off, but she finds herself closing the distance between them. He tastes like oil and apples, and the backseat in the car is full of old papers, and the yellow foam padding is in several places peeking through the leather, irking her, but he doesn't stop tasting like oil and apples.

"Should we be sorry, though?" his fingers ask when they grip her tightly around her shoulders. His lips are hitched to her collarbone, and she digs her heels into his leg, and no, no, his skin isn't cold, it is burning with heat.

She crawls upwards, so that she leans against the closed door, and he sinks backwards, dips his head, and his locks tickle her chest.

He breathes jaggedly. "You don't want to be here, do you?" she asks, and it's not a real question and he seems to know that, as well, and she leans her head even further backwards so that she looks at the world upside-down, through the window.

"If we one day should be sorry…," he murmurs, but her fingers travel across his face and cover his mouth.

"We're not sorry," she repeats, and the world upside-down seems to be a much braver place than the sphere she's learned to endure.

* * *

Lorcan isn't a symphony of birds' song,

Lorcan is the harsh sound of a tree falling in a storm

unable to stand any longer

weak.

* * *

"Go away." His eyes are empty, as though someone's ripped them open and left only their holes behind.

He's on edge; she knows that, so she forces herself to sit down next to him

"Kiss me," she says, because what else is there to say to him?

He doesn't move, so she takes his chin between her hands and his lower lip between her teeth. This time he tastes of tears and tears and more tears and tears.

But maybe it's also her tears. When his fingers begin to pull at the soft skin where her neck becomes shoulders, and she presses herself into the touch so it will feel more, she thinks she might be crying, too.

"Go away, I said," he mumbles, and his hands yank her closer to him, and she could never know if there's something beyond that, if there's something more than the want not to hurt. If there's something that doesn't just ease the pain for a slight moment, that doesn't just numb her. Something that reliably stays there, that promises of forever and being there.

"Don't stop," she tells him. "Don't stop."

* * *

a list of things i want

a heart in a box so it's always mine

mine, even though…

(just so there is one)

* * *

Yesterday he cooked pasta and giggled when she got sauce in the corner of her mouth.

Yesterday he showed her some of his photographs he had taken in the morning.

Yesterday his eyes never stopped to sparkle.

Yesterday he said, "Lysander is coming."

Yesterday she lost.

* * *

She stands on his balcony, staring down at the street and the cars swishing past. It's high. The wind is cold as ice against her cheeks.

The door bursts open, and he beams at her. She kind of wants to shield her eyes.

"There you are," he says, and he plops down on the ground. "Not that I was looking for you."

"Are you happy?" she asks, her back pressed against the frost-covered railing.

"He asked me if he could stay with us for a bit. Just think of it, Dom. Not just us two, but all three, here in that faraway country we always wanted to go to. All three like when we were kids." She wonders if she kissed his smile, would her mouth then be contaminated with happiness and, unconstrained, would twist upwards, too.

"All three," she repeats. "Why did he change his mind?"

"He didn't." And his smile isn't directed at her, but at the world in general, and she shivers.

"Can we go inside?" she asks, and when he rises, he puts a hand on the small of her back and she leans in to the touch.

She stops him, just when he's about to open the door and return to the bright, warm inside and to Lysander.

"Kiss me," she breathes into his neck, and he obliges, but his hands don't grasp her nearly as tightly as they used to, and when they break apart, he isn't broken with _more_, but nags at her hand impatiently.

She wants to stay out there, in the cold. She'll burn up if she goes in there, and she'll have to shield her eyes.

She fits better in the dark, surrounded by frost and ice.

* * *

you're not here sharing my tears

you're not here shivering against my bones

you're not here shattering my thoughts

you're not here

making it bearable

* * *

Before, she could only hear the differences in their voices when she concentrated. Now she lies in the armchair under a blanket with closed eyes and hears them talk, and she can tell exactly who's who.

"But why the States?" Lysander asks. "Why not…Australia, or South Africa? I thought you didn't want to be found."

"Not in general, no." She hears how Lorcan beams. "But by you."

There's a shuffle on the sofa. She feels as though she's never been further away from either of them before. The blanket is an impenetrable wall, the floor between the armchair and the sofa is a sea of lava, and their tangled legs are the ultimate obstacle, which she wouldn't know how ever to overcome.

"It wasn't right, there. It felt as though something was odd, all the time. Like, there wasn't a balance anymore."

She moves around, slowly, and puts her hands across her ears. She doesn't want to hear how Lorcan will explain that the balance here wasn't right either, that she wasn't enough for him.

That she could never help him.

_Just as he can't help me_, she thinks, and she doesn't dare stop protecting her ears from the sounds of their voices.

* * *

push me over and I'll fall

drag me with you and I'll come

jump and I'll follow

* * *

"Dominique!" There are steps echoing in the stairwell, and soon Lysander's lanky figure bends over the rail, and he pants out, "Wait for me!"

She hesitates just by the door, and he rushes down the last steps, jumping when it's only four of them left. "Can I come with you?"

"Where's Lorcan?"

"Asleep. You're out for breakfast, right?" She can't remember if Lorcan also is this tall, or if Lysander has outgrown Lorcan in the months they've been apart.

She nods. They walk down the street, zigzagging between the piles of leaves, and while Lysander skips over the puddles, she walks around them.

"You've got it really nice here," he says as they have received their coffees and are perched on a bench outside the coffee shop. "You and Lorc."

She takes a sip of her black coffee; fingers cradle the cup tightly in the hope the warmth will thaw them a bit.

"He said he's working in that garage and you in the bookshop. Do you like it there?" His eyes are suddenly darkened, and he licks away the cream that got stuck on his lip.

"Yeah," she answers. "It reminds me of Hogwarts."

"Sometimes I wish we were still there," he says, and his hand rests against the plank, his lightly tanned skin darker against the bench's greenish paint. She puts a hand on top of it, white, pale skin contrasting even more with his than what the bench ever could.

"But you're here now," she says.

"I missed you, Dom. Not just Lorcan, I missed _you_, too." He turns his hand around and catches hers in it, long fingers meeting across her palm.

"Why did you come here?" she asks, hand limp in his. "Why did you follow us?" She rises, dragging her hand to herself and fisting it against her side.

"The same reason you left, I suppose. So why did you run?" He stands up, too, Frappuccino forgotten on the bench next to her abandoned coffee.

"Because we couldn't do anything else. And you ran, too, but the other way." He walks up to her and winds his arms around her, and she finds that she doesn't mind. He leans his chin on the top of her head, and she presses her cheek against his chest and the soft fabric of his t-shirt, that softness that only appears when one's worn the shirt a hundred times.

"I know," he says. "I'm sorry."

She tilts her head upwards, and their lips meet, and he tastes of summer and warmth, instead of staleness and stinging ice, but it's still so similar to Lorcan that it scares her.

"We'll just end up breaking ourselves," she whispers, and she walks away from him, while she actually should have said, _You'll break, not me—I am already broken_.

* * *

one plus one

and I am the third; I am another one

the answer must be two

so where do I fit

* * *

"When's the last time you did magic, Dom?" Lorcan asks. In front of him on the table lies his wand, amongst empty cups and magazines with coffee stains in them.

"Why?" she asks. "When did you…"

"Do you remember what it used to feel like?" His hands are clasped together, and she wonders how long it would take for him to open them and grasp the stick. It looks dead where it rests silently.

"No," she says, and she turns her back to him, because she doesn't remember, she has forgotten all of that, pressed it out of herself and sent away, as far away as was possible.

That was another time.

* * *

can't heal this won't heal this

go

* * *

He will awake to an empty bed and press his hand against the crinkles of the sheet that still lingers with body warmth.

He will walk on unsteady legs to the living room and see Lysander sleeping soundlessly.

He will press a hand to his mouth when he sees the emptied wardrobe.

He will fall to the floor when he sees the lack of shoes in the hallway.

He will clutch the note she's left behind so hardly he rips it.

He will wet it with tears so no one can read the words he has imprinted on his eyelids.

He will never find her.

* * *

_fin_

* * *

_A/N2: So, I wanted to mention that my beta-reader (mew) and I had fairly different interpretations of this story. While mew saw the three of them having been in a threesome before, from which Dominique and Lorcan then left, my way of interpreting this included just a very strong friendship, turned into Dominique and Lorcan starting a relationship when in the US, to fill that space of Lysander. Hmm. I suppose the story is fairly open, as simple as that. I hope you enjoyed it, however you read it!_


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